


spiral

by pomelo (rootcellars)



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Character Study, F/F, Slice of Life, hyejoo centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 16:07:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26091613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rootcellars/pseuds/pomelo
Summary: Chaewon just smiles, like she always does, and then she’s gone. It’s a little too familiar, every time.
Relationships: Park Chaewon | Go Won/Son Hyejoo | Olivia Hye
Comments: 7
Kudos: 64
Collections: Girl Group Jukebox - Mixtape Round





	spiral

**Author's Note:**

> Written for GG Jukebox Mixtape Round, inspired by [Vow by SALES](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nF3KjIdLqys).

**2/10**

“It’s Chaewon unnie,” says Yerim, padding over to the door in her slippers. “She said she had something for us.”

Hyejoo frowns. She’s sitting cross-legged in bed, her laptop running at a dangerous 2%. First she wonders why Chaewon hadn’t texted her. Then she remembers that she’s officially the world’s worst texter, even though she sees every message basically as soon as it appears on her phone. And the problem is twofold when it comes to Chaewon. Even when Hyejoo tries to type out a response to the simplest things, an invitation to dinner or a _hope you’re doing well!_ , nothing ever feels right enough to send.

“I come bearing gifts,” says Chaewon as she kicks off her shoes. “Because I couldn’t be around for your first finals week, though I’m sure you two did just fine.”

Yerim pumps her arms and whoops, exaggerated. Hyejoo just smiles. It’s hard not to smile around Chaewon.

In Chaewon’s arms are two plush Kakao Friends, a jar of citron tea, and a paper baggie of yeot. When she goes to give Apeach to Yerim, her eyes bug out comically at the sight of the notes, spread out over the desk and covered with Yerim’s small, neat handwriting amid complex-looking diagrams. “And now I realize I should be the one in my dorm studying, I think.”

“Don’t worry, unnie,” smirks Hyejoo, turning her laptop to show Chaewon the empty document she’s been staring at for two hours now. “We can’t all be Choi Yerim.”

“Oh, stop it,” says Chaewon as she walks over to Hyejoo’s bed. “You’ll pull through even if you need to stay up all night to do it.” She pouts, and it’s cute. Her cheeks and fingertips are red from walking over in the cold when she places Neo in Hyejoo’s lap. “Don’t stay up unless you absolutely have to though,” she warns, but when she looks into Hyejoo’s eyes there’s something a little unsure, like she’s worried she might be wrong.

She’s still right, though. “You know I will,” jokes Hyejoo. It’s weak, but the smile returns to Chaewon’s face.

It’s not like Hyejoo hasn’t made the occasional attempt to unfuck her own sleep schedule. Once in a blue moon she lets herself be swayed by Yerim’s pleas for a morning workout buddy, or Sooyoung bribing her with homemade breakfast. But really, Hyejoo hasn’t changed at all. She’s still the same Hyejoo she was when Chaewon graduated high school, left for college, went abroad. Still a little too prone to sitting in the dark with only the glow of her laptop and the company of thousands of nameless strangers, playing League into the wee hours of the night. Or typing and retyping and deleting a response to a text, imagining the decision tree branching into potential conversations until she falls asleep with KKT still open.

Not even Chaewon could get her out of her head, though she had certainly tried. And in some twist of cosmic irony, Hyejoo snaps back to attention just as Chaewon is strapping her boots on at the door, clearly meaning to leave.

“Thank you Chaewon unnie,” says Hyejoo, waving from her bed and squeezing Neo tight with her other arm. Chaewon just smiles, like she always does, and then she’s gone. It’s a little too familiar, every time.

  
–  
  


“What do you have tomorrow?” mumbles Yerim from her bed some time later, as she prepares to turn in for the night at a very respectable 12:15 am.

“Just stats.” Hyejoo tabs over to her calendar, pouting at the hours she’s blocked off in red for exams. 

“You remember what I went over with you, right?”

“Yeah,” says Hyejoo. “But this history paper needs to be done in two days, and I kind of didn’t do shit today.”

“Well, Chaewon unnie is right,” yawns Yerim. “You’ll be just fine. You were always good with the last-minute kind of thing.” Hyejoo hears Yerim shuffling in her sheets, scrolling through different alarm tones. “It was really nice of her to come over today. It’s nice that we’re all in the same place again, kind of like old times.”

“I don’t know where I would be without you and the five years of remedial math lessons you gave me,” says Hyejoo, making a valiant attempt to change the topic. “It’s a good thing teacher placed us next to each other all those years ago in geometry.”

“I thought you hated me at first,” says Yerim, fond. “You never talked to me in all those years our parents knew each other. Then I realized you’re shy, and you look a little scary on the outside. But when you let someone in,” another yawn, “you’re just a big softy.”

“Don’t forget dinner tomorrow,” says Yerim after a bit, and she sounds like she’s on the brink of falling asleep. Hyejoo won’t forget, because Chaewon will be there. She stays awake for a long time after that in the glow of her empty document.

  
  
  
  


**2/11**

By the time Hyejoo gets to the restaurant, everyone else is already crowded around the table, picking at banchan. She folds herself into the empty chair between Sooyoung and Chaewon, and waits for her glasses to defog.

“How was your exam?” asks Sooyoung.

“It was fine, thanks to Yerim,” says Hyejoo as she thumbs through the menu. The exam room had been freezing, and the desk she’d been placed at kept creaking on its uneven leg. But the problems themselves had been fine, as if Yerim had been leaning over her shoulder the whole time, coaching her through the steps like they were in high school math class again.

“She’s so smart, isn’t she?” says Jinsol, flicking Yerim on the forehead.

“Only because of you, unnie.” Yerim, always humble.

“Nonsense.” Jinsol’s other arm is around Chaewon’s shoulders, and Hyejoo looks at her perfect manicure, the silver rings on her fingers nestled into the folds of Chaewon’s plaid coat. “I’ve always been lucky, and then they match me with a freshman mentee who’s tutoring me instead of the other way around.”

Chaewon and Jinsol are laughing together, and something in Hyejoo’s stomach twists. She had made Chaewon laugh like that, a long time ago now – had taken that easy closeness for granted, once.

Hyejoo can’t even hate Jinsol. A traitorous part of her wonders if it isn’t a crime to be so gorgeous and a math genius to boot, but the problem is that Jinsol is also warm and kind, her dark eyes sparkling with a lively, down-to-earth magnetism. When Sooyoung had first introduced them, Hyejoo had understood it immediately. Jinsol is the kind of girl you want to fall in love with. Jinsol is the kind of girl it’s near impossible not to fall in love with. So really, she can’t blame –

“Why are you pouting?” whispers Chaewon in her ear, and Hyejoo tries to school her mouth back into a normal expression.

“I’m not pouting,” she says.

“She’s so cute when she pouts,” says Chaewon to Jinsol this time, and she pinches Hyejoo’s cheek. Hyejoo feels the blood rushing to her face. “What is she so cute for?”

“She is!” says Jinsol, smiling her beautiful smile, and when she pats Hyejoo on the shoulder it feels like a consolation.

  
  
  
  


**2/12**

Hyejoo is dozing behind her computer when something tugs at her elbow. It’s Yerim, packing up her books and looking apologetic. “Sorry,” she explains as she grabs her taro milk tea, still seventy percent full. “I promised Jinsol unnie I’d help her with her engineering project.” From across the table, Chaewon pushes Yerim’s pencil case towards her. “Don’t forget this!”

Hyejoo rubs the salt out of her eyes, and when she puts her glasses back on she notices Chaewon watching her. Her eyes – they’re careful, maybe even fond if she’s being wishful.

“You stayed up late again, didn’t you?” asks Chaewon, smiling a little.

“Yeah.” Hyejoo slurps up the last of her iced coffee and begins to twirl her pen. “Caffeine doesn’t even work on me anymore.” She stares glumly at her history paper, which has grown by a mere paragraph since they arrived at the cafe to study.

“It’s just the two of us now,” Chaewon places a hand over Hyejoo’s fidgeting one, and Hyejoo stills. “We can’t all be Choi Yerim, right? Let’s work hard for a few more hours, and then we can treat ourselves to something nice for dinner.”

“You’re right.” Chaewon still knows, evidently, to motivate her with the promise of food and company. Hyejoo can’t help but think of all the time they’d spent together like this growing up, sitting near each other in awkward silence after Yerim had left to go hang out with other people. They were two left-behind puzzle pieces that shared no adjacent edges. There had never been much talking involved. Even after that night at Yerim’s house, when Yerim had run to the kitchen to help her mom with the dishes and Chaewon had kissed her on the mouth – even after that, there wasn’t much to say. But the quiet between them had grown comfortable, sweeter.

Across from her, Chaewon pulls out a mixed media drawing pad.

“I didn’t know you drew,” says Hyejoo, and Chaewon grimaces.

“Not really,” she says, and she flips to a page of what looks like square diagrams. “It’s for my web design class. I really don’t have the eye for it but I’m trying to get better.”

“That’s cool.” Every time she learns something new about Chaewon, Hyejoo feels guilty, like she should already know. “Is that something you want to do?”

“We’ll see,” Chaewon pens in a new box. “Jinsol unnie suggested it, she said it would count for a communications credit and it’s a useful skill to have, isn’t it?”

Hyejoo reluctantly keys in another sentence of her paper and allows herself to look up. Chaewon’s brows are furrowed in concentration. Her hand reaches out for her tea but misses once, twice before she finally grasps it and brings it to her mouth. Hyejoo wants to wince at how sweet it must be – lychee jelly, full sugar, no ice. Chaewon always gets the same thing.

Hyejoo keeps all the little, mundane things she knows about Chaewon tucked away preciously, like her habit of chewing on her pen when she’s thinking, and the tone of voice she reserves exclusively for talking to dogs. But she realizes now that there’s so much she doesn’t know, like what Chaewon wants to do with a communications degree, or what her relationship with her mom is like, or why she decided to study abroad in Australia, of all places. As much as Chaewon loves to chatter – well, Hyejoo has never been good at asking.

  
–  
  


“You really didn’t have to do all this for me,” says Hyejoo later as they walk back to the dorms together, hands stuffed deep in their pockets and breaths puffing white in the night air. The soondubu is still hot in her belly, warming her from the inside out.

“Don’t worry,” says Chaewon cheerfully. “I’ll make you pay for dinner next time.”

“I didn’t mean that. I meant like, all of today. Studying with me and talking with me and taking me out to eat.” Hyejoo’s face burns hot, as if her ears aren’t already bright red. “It’s really nice of you. But it’s okay, if you ever get too busy. I don’t want you to feel like you have to.”

“I’m not your mentor or anything, you know,” Chaewon’s voice is quiet, but steady. “I’m your friend.” It sounds so easy when she says it, and Hyejoo feels relief, but also – disappointment.

“I guess so,” says Hyejoo. “Thank you anyway.”

“Hey,” says Chaewon, and Hyejoo looks over like her. “I missed spending time with you like this.” A pause. “Remember how we went to the lake to celebrate my graduation, but we didn’t realize we would have to walk all the way back home?” She giggles. “It was almost exactly two years ago, wasn’t it? But even worse, because our hair was still wet.”

Hyejoo smiles, even though her heart twists. “We were so stupid to go swimming in the winter.” Chaewon had been shivering so hard that Hyejoo had peeled off her own teddy bear jacket and wrapped it around her. Later, after they’d both showered, they lay snuggled up under the blankets in Hyejoo’s bed, and Chaewon had pulled Hyejoo’s arms around her, skin to skin.

“But don’t you think it’s fun to be reckless sometimes?”

That was the thing about Chaewon – Hyejoo had never had so much fun before. “I think you’ve always been more daring than me,” she says. “My mom always told me I should be studious like Yerim, and brave like you.”

  
  
  
  


**2/13**

Hump day of finals week is predictably awful, and it leaves Hyejoo so winded that by evening she can barely make sense of her own thoughts. Yerim had dragged her kicking and screaming out of bed just in time for her 9 am econ final, and for the rest of the afternoon she’d been on history paper lockdown, downing iced coffee after iced coffee until Haseul, the nice barista at the campus cafe, had started giving her refills without even asking. Her literature notes had been starting to blur before her eyes when, like a godsend, she had caught wind of the scent of food drifting from one corner of the campus center.

Hyejoo is sitting down with her plate, thinking only of the catered pajeon she’s about to stuff into her mouth, when she realizes she’s picked the seat right next to one Jung Jinsol, who is smiling up at her with an expression like an excited puppy and waving.

Hyejoo waves back weakly and tries to smile, though she’s not sure she has full control over her facial muscles. It’s easy enough to chalk up to exhaustion. Hyejoo has never thought of herself as a jealous person, but she can’t help but think back to the way Chaewon had leaned into Jinsol at dinner the other night, and the comfortable, familiar banter between them.

“Long day?” asks Jinsol, and Hyejoo manages to nod through a mouthful of pajeon. She laughs, “I would tell you it gets better by the time you’re a senior, but I’d be lying. At least you’re here now? Free food and –” she motions to herself, “– my dubious company.” Jinsol’s laugh is soft and breathy, just as pretty as the rest of her. “So are you in the club? Or thinking about joining?”

“I’m not,” says Hyejoo. The well-meaning emails from the LGBTQ Student Union have been piling up unread in her inbox all year. “I put my name down at the activity fair, but I never really got around to going to meetings.”

“You never realize until you’re in the thick of it how much time it takes just to adapt to college life,” offers Jinsol, like an olive branch.

“Yeah,” says Hyejoo, but it feels like taking the easy way out. Then, “I haven’t ever really had a girlfriend. I guess I chickened out in the end.”

Jinsol might think she’s still talking about club meetings, but Hyejoo realizes it’s the most honest thing she’s said out loud in a long time.

“That’s okay. I didn’t have my first girlfriend until I came to college either.” Jinsol looks at her for a long moment. “And dating girls never really stops being complicated.”

Hyejoo pokes at the cold japchae on her plate. She’s realizing, now, that there are big-hearted girls like Jinsol who sigh about how complicated it is to date other girls, and then there are the girls who make it complicated in the first place, and Hyejoo knows full well which category she falls into. She thinks about all the almost dates she had dragged Yerim into third-wheeling. The flashes of panic that had sliced through her whenever Chaewon’s eyes went soft and dopey. She thinks about a text on her phone that reads, _hope you’re doing well!_ And a text before that: _just landed in Sydney ^^ this sleepy koala reminded me of you. call sometime?_ And long before that: _city view from my dorm window ㅠㅠㅠㅠ when will you come visit me, Hyejoo-ya?_

“Well, damn,” Hyejoo finally manages to joke, realizing that Jinsol is still looking at her. “I was hoping the gay crisis was a one-time thing.”

“Yeah,” says Jinsol, laughing her pretty laugh. “Sorry to break it to you.”

A kind of acceptance washes over Hyejoo. Chaewon deserves someone who will give her an open, uncomplicated future. Jinsol’s face is so attentive, her eyes so trusting, that for a moment Hyejoo considers telling her everything. But when she opens her mouth, she realizes that she doesn’t even know where to begin. What would she even say? I’ve been in love with Chaewon for two years now, but I’m only just beginning to get my head out of my ass. It hurts, but I’m glad she found someone who deserves her, first.

“I –” starts Hyejoo, but she’s interrupted by a tap on the shoulder. When she turns around there’s a girl she’s never seen before standing there. She’s pretty, with a small pink mouth and eyes shaped like a cat’s, but she won’t quite meet Hyejoo’s gaze.

“I’ve never really done this before,” she says, “but, uh, here you go.” She shoves a napkin into Hyejoo’s open hand, flashes her a tentative smile. “Only if you want to, though.”

The girl hurries out the door. Jinsol watches with a smile tugging at the corner of her mouth. Hyejoo just sits there, stunned, looking at the words scrawled on the brown of the recycled paper: _Kim Hyunjin_ , followed by her KKT ID.

“Cute,” says Jinsol, her face all lit up. “Is she your type?”

“That’s never happened to me before, ever,” says Hyejoo, her face burning hot. “I don’t understand how she could just – she doesn’t even know me.”

“Sometimes it’s worth going out on a limb,” says Jinsol. “You never know, until you really get to spend time with someone. You might be surprised.”

All those years, Chaewon had just been another unnie, daughter of some family friend, someone to sit with on the bus or make idle chatter with at her parents’ parties. Then she had kissed Hyejoo one fall evening, and Hyejoo had let her. Then she had taken her Suneung and bought her train ticket to Seoul and hugged all her friends goodbye, and Hyejoo had let her. What Hyejoo hadn’t let Chaewon do, in between: Hold her hand in public, exchange stupid texts and animal videos late into the night, ask her to be her girlfriend.

Hyejoo shouldn’t have been so surprised, when Chaewon was gone and suddenly she wished she hadn’t mistaken that heart-pounding feeling for dread. But she had been totally blindsided – that’s the only way it could have ended, for someone as deep in denial as she had been.

Jinsol is looking at her, ever kind and patient, looking like she’s ready to dispense more dating advice at any time.

“I’m about to drop dead,” says Hyejoo, genuinely feeling a little faint. “I should probably head home.”

“Okay!” says Jinsol brightly. “Hey, I’m really glad we finally got to talk like this, just the two of us. Chaewon’s right, you’re a cutie.” She pulls out her phone. “Let’s keep in touch, okay?”

Hyejoo feels her ears burn scarlet. “I, um –”

“Don’t look scared like that. I’m not a cradle robber,” Jinsol grins. “I guess it’s weird to say so soon, but you kind of remind me of my younger self.”

Hyejoo can’t stop replaying that line on the walk back to her dorm. She’s never wanted so badly before to just grow up already.

  
  
  
  


**2/14**

The spring in Chaewon’s step tells the whole world she’s a dancer. Her roots are growing in and the tips of her hair frizz in the morning sunlight, but the even blonde of her head makes her look golden, so different from the streaky dye job they’d attempted together as high schoolers in Hyejoo’s bathroom.

“You’ll come later, won’t you?” she says to Hyejoo when she bumps into her in the quad, smiling hard enough to crease all her dimples and raising the cup in her hand like she’s toasting. “The dance department always goes all out for the end of year showcase. There’s usually free wine at these things.”

“I should be there,” says Hyejoo, even as her phone buzzes to remind her she’s got to get to her literature exam. Chaewon’s face lights up. She frowns at the drink in Chaewon’s hand. “Is there even coffee in that?”

The mound of whipped cream wobbles precariously, and Chaewon slurps at it ungracefully. “Course not,” she says, licking the white off her upper lip. “It’s hot chocolate, with an extra pump of caramel.”

Hyejoo can’t look her in the eye. “I’ll see you later, unnie,” she says. “Wish me luck on my exam?”

“Hwaiting! You’ll do great!” calls Chaewon after her. “The humanities department won’t know what hit it!”

  
–  
  


The showcase has already started by the time Hyejoo stumbles out of the exam room, praying that one day she’ll regain feeling in her right hand again. Clutching a plastic cup of wine, she spots Yerim waving at her from a corner of the crowd, and tries to snake through. Jinsol and Sooyoung are there, too, and another girl who introduces herself as Jungeun.

Chaewon’s solo is third in the lineup. Jinsol and Yerim whoop along with others in the crowd when the emcee reads her name. Hyejoo cranes her neck to get a better view of the stage as the music starts to play.

It’s somber and in a minor key – not what Hyejoo would have expected, at least not from the Oh My Girl posters that decorated the walls of Chaewon’s bedroom back home. There’s a collective gasp from the audience as Chaewon appears. She looks tiny in her white dress. Backlit by a silver stage light, tendrils of her blonde hair curl around her face.

Chaewon is captivating as a dancer. The crowd’s appreciative humming only grows louder, and Hyejoo faintly recognizes the sound of the polaroid camera in Jinsol’s hands spitting out photos, but it all seems to fade into the background as Chaewon takes center stage. The way she’s moving, her feet don’t even appear to be touching the ground. It’s like she’s being pulled in one direction and then another by unseen forces. When she bends towards the ground, appearing to fall, Hyejoo longs to catch her.

It’s a performance about loneliness, she realizes. Chaewon is always smiling in her imagination, eyes kind and arms wide open, surrounded by friends and adoring would-be lovers. But Hyejoo must have hurt her, too, with her flightiness and her denial and her terminal inability to say something – anything.

The performance ends with the echo of a single note, Chaewon stretched out on her side with one arm reached to the heavens. The crowd bursts into applause. Hyejoo puts her cup of wine down on the table, and claps so hard her palms sting.

“Chaewon’s incredible,” says Jungeun. “Has she been dancing for a long time?”

“Yeah,” says Sooyoung. “Aren’t we so lucky we got her on the team? She said she’s been taking dance classes since she was thirteen.”

Chaewon has been dancing for nearly half the time they’ve known each other, Hyejoo realizes, but she had never thought to ask, or to wonder what Chaewon had been doing on weekend afternoons when she was busy.

“You know she’s experienced because she’s so clean, technically,” Jungeun is saying, “but to have that kind of emotionality, it’s really amazing.”

The emcee is back on stage, announcing the next performance, and Chaewon is stumbling to their group through the wings and waving excitedly. Her face splits into a grin. “I feel like I’m high off of being onstage,” she says, breathing hard. There are spots of red in her cheeks.

They take turns pulling her into hugs. Someone shoves a bouquet of flowers into Chaewon’s arms. “You were so, so good,” says Hyejoo when it’s her turn, her face in a spray of daisies. “I’m never going to miss one of your shows ever again.”

Jinsol is passing out polaroids. Chaewon arcing towards the ground, Chaewon in motion on blurred feet, Chaewon being pulled in two directions. The one that Hyejoo gets has Chaewon reaching an arm out to something, someone in the darkness. It’s funny to be holding a little photo of Chaewon in her hands, when Hyejoo has spent so long only collecting mental images: her dimpled laugh as she jumps into a lake, her hugging a koala, her eyes closed, cheeks freckled from the sun.

“I’m holding you to that,” says Chaewon quietly, smiling, when their little huddle of friends has settled down. “I was really worried you wouldn’t like it.”

Hyejoo is quiet for a moment. “It made me feel – sad, like I was chasing after something impossible. It made me think a lot,” she says, and maybe this is what it feels like to be honest. “I loved it.”

  
  
  
  


**2/15**

Hyejoo wakes up to sunlight streaming into her face. Yerim is grinning down at her, backlit by the window behind her, curtains pulled wide.

“Too bright,” Hyejoo mumbles, trying to pull her pillow over her head.

“It’s eleven already. You promised you’d walk me to the train station!” A pause. “Unless…”

“Ugh.” Hyejoo rubs her eyes and flops over. “Fine. I’m getting up.” Yerim, always on top of things, has been packing slowly over the last week, a little bit each day. She’d even defrosted the mini fridge two days in advance. Hyejoo’s biggest suitcase has been lying open in the middle of their dorm room for a day now, and it’s still empty.

When Hyejoo checks her phone, she has a new text from Sooyoung. _Hyejoo-ya_ , it reads, and there’s a photo attached of a bag of groceries – a pack of short ribs, two big carrots, fresh mushrooms. _Come over for dinner tonight before you leave? Our last mentor-mentee meal together as students ㅠㅠ_

Hyejoo supposes she’ll have to get dressed after all.

  
–  
  


Sooyoung’s kitchen is perfect, warm and cozy and neat, and Hyejoo is hit by a lungful of fragrant steam the moment she pushes the door open.

“Don’t just stand there,” says Sooyoung, as Hyejoo savors the smell of braising beef without even attempting to take her boots off. “You’re letting the cold air in. At this rate I’m going to make you do all the dishes.”

“You always make me do all the dishes anyway,” Hyejoo points out, though she closes the door and begins to unlace her shoes. Sooyoung brings the steaming pan of galbijjim over to the table and sets it on a pot holder. She gestures to the tupperwares on the counter, and Hyejoo dutifully carries them over to the table. There’s water kimchi and pickled daikon and fish cakes, all homemade, because Sooyoung is talented like that.

“Are you going to be staying here next year, too?” asks Hyejoo, once they’ve sat down before steaming bowls of rice and stew.

“I think so. The rent is good and it won’t be too far from my work.” Sooyoung struggles with a piece of short rib that won’t come off its bone. “You can keep visiting me. You’d like that, huh?”

“Yeah,” says Hyejoo. “I showed my mom pictures of the food we made together and she said she wasn’t even going to bother packing me anything the next time I went back to school.” She’d neglected to mention that Sooyoung was ranked in the top ten of her class, and would be interning for a big law firm her first year out of college to boot. “I always thought it was kind of funny that we got matched up. At least Jinsol and Yerim are both good at math.”

“Maybe it’s because I had no idea what I wanted to study when I came to college, either,” says Sooyoung. “I was taking a little bit of everything. Whatever it was, I feel really lucky now, you know.”

“You?”

“I never know how to act around younger people,” says Sooyoung. “I was worried we would just be awkward. But you’re like a little sister. It’s cool to get to watch you grow up.”

“Glad you found a way to relate, grandma,” snarks Hyejoo, and Sooyoung kicks her under the table. Hyejoo thinks about what Jinsol had said to her the other day. She’s nineteen years old, but all these unnies talk about her like she’s a kid. She doesn’t resent it, because she knows it to be true. More seriously, she says, “I’ve been thinking. I have a lot of growing up to do.”

“You’re always thinking,” says Sooyoung. “You can joke about my age all you want, Ha Hyejoo, but we’re all young people, and we all have a lot to learn.” Her face is fond when she puts her spoon down and looks Hyejoo in the eye. “Sometimes you have to put the simulation on hold and just do something, you know?”

“I know,” says Hyejoo, pushing mushrooms around her bowl. Then: “Unnie, did you ever date in college?”

“Yeah, a bit. What do you want to know?” Sooyoung grimaces. “I don’t know if I can give the best advice. You should talk to Jinsol about that. She’s really good with that kind of thing.”

“Nothing specific,” says Hyejoo, but then she decides that she’s going to practice being honest again. Sooyoung is looking at her. “What do you do,” she says carefully, “when you finally realize you like someone, but you think it might be too late?”

  
  
  
  


**2/16**

Staying up all night had been a mistake. The caffeine headache hits Hyejoo right as she’s dragging her suitcase up a flight of stairs in the train station, and the people around her are definitely staring. She had gotten home from dinner the night before, put on her peppiest playlist, and stared down two loads of laundry and an entire room she needed to pack up. Then she had put the music on pause and let herself play an hour of League, with the excuse that she’d been working hard all week, and she couldn’t do any packing until her clothes were clean, anyway.

Somewhere in the frenzy of trying every possible suitcase arrangement for her belongings, relistening to her English lectures at two times speed, and her third instant coffee, Hyejoo had picked up her phone, struck by a sudden wave of courage.

 _Hi Jinsol unnie_ , she had written. _It would be really cool if we could hang out next year. You’re still going to be living in Seoul, right?_

Then she’d clicked into her texts with Chaewon. Rather, Chaewon’s texts to her. She’d wanted to apologize, even ask forgiveness, scrolling through all the kind messages she hadn’t known how to reply to. Instead she’d finally written: _Good luck on tomorrow’s exam… thinking of you! Hwaiting! ㅎㅎ_

A bit pathetic, when Hyejoo thinks about it, but these days she’s trying.

“Need help with that?” comes a voice from behind her, and suddenly the weight of the suitcase is a lot lighter. Hyejoo turns around. Of course it’s Chaewon. Of course they have to be on the same train back home.

“I didn’t think I’d see you here,” says Hyejoo, once they’re sitting on a bench on the platform together. She looks at their feet. “Don’t you have an exam?”

“Yeah, but it was the morning slot, silly.”

“Oh,” says Hyejoo. “Mine too. English.”

“What? Then why did I get a text from you at 4 am?” Chaewon yelps.

“Packing… and studying,” Hyejoo admits. “I put it all off until my last night. Is that so surprising?”

Chaewon is frowning. “Knowing you, you probably aced the test anyway. And your English is good. I remember you used to practice all the time when you were gaming!”

Hyejoo laughs out loud at that. It’s an absurd memory: Chaewon curled up on her bed, watching comeback stages on her phone, while Hyejoo cursed out international opponents the best she could through her headset. “Not the kind that translates to English class, unnie.”

When the train pulls in, they find an empty aisle for two and somehow, together, manage to put their suitcases up over their heads.

“Take the window seat,” Chaewon says. When Hyejoo hesitates, she shoves her shoulder playfully. “Come on. I know you like it the best.” Chaewon has always been better at paying attention, better at showing it. Hyejoo wonders if there’s a special place for her in Chaewon’s heart, where Chaewon keeps records of all her quirks and idiosyncrasies the way that Hyejoo does for her. Certainly at one point there had been. And – they’re still friends. Perhaps it’s not too late, after all.

The train always starts so slowly, and so smoothly, that Hyejoo has never quite been able to pinpoint the moment it begins to move. But this time she’s watching carefully, staring out the window and watching the town give way to its outskirts, the outskirts give way to forest. It’s still marvelous, how fast the train goes from stillness to creeping glide to whooshing through the trees. Her heart – it’s racing.

Hyejoo looks away from the window and over at Chaewon, who is tapping away at her phone. She could be texting her parents, or Jinsol, or someone else who will, hopefully, love her like she deserves. Hyejoo is just happy to be looking at her.

“Maybe we could hang out over break,” Hyejoo offers, when Chaewon looks up. She panics a little. The cowardly part of her brain wants to add a _Yerim, too_ like she had so many, too many times before, but she bites her tongue.

“I’d love that,” says Chaewon. “As long as it’s not the lake again. Not until summer, at least.”

Hyejoo smiles. Thinks about the words she wants to say, but doesn’t have the courage to yet: I was so stupid for so long, and I hurt you, and I’m sorry. It might be too late, but I really liked you back then. I still do.

“You’re staring.” Chaewon doesn’t sound annoyed, just teasing. “I can’t believe you stayed up all night. If you sleep on my shoulder, I won’t tell.”

Outside the window, the February sun melts the ice on the branches, drip by drip, but Hyejoo doesn’t see it.

**Author's Note:**

> i hope this wasn't too angsty! i wanted to try my hand at writing a more ambiguous relationship, but one that feels real and also a little bit hopeful. i've been thinking a lot this summer about the platonic ideal of love and what it looks like outside of a defined relationship. also thinking a lot (as always) about what it means to grow up.
> 
> if you enjoyed, please let me know :)


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